Saturday, February 14, 2015

Hello Everyone, it’s me, Wimsey. wishing you a Happy Valentine’s
and President's Day from Manhattan’s Upper West Side where the cold weather has done nothing
toslow the ardor of the City’s
Hound-loving public. I have been out and about this week much to the consternation of my
(well-bundled up) human Maria and her (Michelin Man look alike) friend Elizabeth.I too am suitably caparisoned in my Chilly
Dog winter coat which garners many compliments among the canine fashion cognoscenti
here in one of the world’s great style capitals.

My humans would love to pair the coat with a
pair of salt-resistant booties but this is just too much look in my view.There is also the small detail that no one is
getting anywhere near me with booties, fashionable or not. The current paw-protecting
regimen involves sneaking up on me when I am lying down and rubbing this waxy
stuff onto my pads whilst trying to distract me with a belly rub or
turkey.Success, as usual, depends on
how much I want the goods on offer.

Sadly owing to the fact that my mouth is healed from recent
surgery, the coat and the Heinous Gentle Leader are back in play. However, my
humans have decided that since I like the soft Merrick canned food so much (and
now the Weruva samples that the nice lady in the pet shop provided) I will be
getting some canned food mixed in with the boring kibble.This is a welcome development and was almost
worth having the surgery for.

Now as many of you know, I am a finicky eater and like my food
custom-prepared to my exacting specifications. This also applies to the canned
food where any large chunks of meat must be broken up into more Wimsey-pleasing
pieces. So Elizabeth did this for me the other day but was seriously negligent
in the matter of the carrots. She was watching me eat my carefully curated
lunch (kibble, fresh boiled chicken breast, Merrick beef stew, roasted fresh
yam and some canned pumpkin) when I removed an offensively long baby carrot
from the mix and spat in on the floor. Now in my defense I did try to be cooperative
and eat the thing. I picked it up and rolled it around in my mouth several
times before concluding that its
dimensions were seriously displeasing. The mouth feel was all wrong. The advantage of
demanding that one of your humans watch you eat is that they are available to
assist you in these types of culinary crises.Elizabeth finally realized that some major intervention was called for
and broke the carrot in two and hand fed it to me. Once properly sized, the
carrot was easily consumed and I was able to resume my gustatory activities. I
don’t know how I am expected to eat carrots of the wrong shape. When Maria heard about this, she properly
admonished Elizabeth about the importance of not neglecting the carrots when
sizing my meal. I am hopeful that this experience will not be repeated. I sympathize with the nut-rage lady—I too am
passionate about good service. Other people’s.

In other news, Elizabeth was at a conference on Monday and
Tuesday and Maria had to come home from work to walk me midday. I hate this.
Generally I feel that if I park myself on the couch and refuse to move Elizabeth
will appear as usual.

And to add insult to injury Maria tried to apply my new
ear ointment. As if. Fortunately this meant that Elizabeth had to come over in
the evenings to attend to my various body parts and take me for a long
“make-up” walk. I am not a Hound whose wants are to be trifled with as anyone
who is on the receiving end of my “wrong human, go away” glare can attest.

After this, things fortunately
went back to normal, which is to say that Elizabeth picked me up the in
afternoon and took me to her place where I draped myself on the legs of her
office chair so she couldn’t move. I also like to wait until she is deeply
involved in her work to decide that I am now ready for my early evening walk.I then chivvy her to get ready, which fearing
an eliminatory emergency, she does with alacrity.

When she gets to the point
that she puts on her ski pants over her long johns (did I mention that my
humans don’t get a lot of dates?) I high tail it to the futon, ascend, and engage
in The Wimsey Mattress Meld.I require extensive
bribing to come down and allow the putting on of my walking equipment. Maria
meanwhile is racing home from work to join us when the irate text messages
begin flooding her inbox. I don’t know why Elizabeth complains—I do this to her
most every day but she always seems surprised at my perfidy. I guess she’s a
slow learner.

But fortunately the people who admire me on the street know
nothing about any of this and continue
to praise my apparent loving and genial disposition.I am a classic case of the iron fist inside
the velvet glove. Or velvet wrinkles.And
as usual this week my vocal skills have also been much admired-- although a
lady asked if I had a sore throat.She
thought that I was trying to bark and a throat ailment caused a bay, which
amused my humans. I was offended at the notion that my beautiful voice could be
thought to be a side effect of illness.My baying, as you might imagine, causes quite a stir and the reactions to
it vary dramatically.There are the
people who run. There are the people who smile.And there are the people who come to tell my humans that they hear me
all the time and wondered what was making that noise.People usually want to know why I am baying—probably
for reassurance that I am not about to do something violent.Everybody loves to hear me bay. Especially
me. Then there is the doorman on West End Avenue who himself bays whenever he
sees me and the superintendent of the building across the street who always
asks Elizabeth if she can get me to bay for him.Really, if my humans could “get me to do
something” I guarantee it wouldn’t involve baying.

Sadly my schedule is about to be disrupted again because
Monday and Tuesday is the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. My humans are
excited to be in attendance and we are all excited that I am not.Those of you who read this blog regularly
have heard tell of my in-ring show dog antics—everything from refusing to trot,
gaiting with my nose on the ground, refusing to stack, baying and of course
persistently trying to socialize with the lady Hounds. But I have devoted less
attention to the out of ring experience. Westminster is a benched show which
means that dogs are obligated to stay on their benches all day which meant that
my humans were obligated to try to keep me entertained all day.Not a simple task for an easily bored Hound
such as myself who is eager to be off following scent.

So I would stand around in front of my crate, meeting and
greeting (sliming and baying) in between walks to the indoor potty area where I
was infamous for poking people in the tush (it’s tough to control a 130 pound
Hound amidst an abundance of highly accessible
tushes) and then sniffing the pen instead of eliminating in it. And since there was much that I wanted to do
that I was prevented from doing this necessitated an extensive amount of protest
baying which necessitates an extensive amount of in-between-bay head shakes
which necessitated an extensive amount of flying spit which necessitated an
extensive amount of apologizing on the part of my humans (or running).

I mean seriously, why
was I there if not to gratify the needs of my nose? The only positive thing was the scorn and
humiliation heaped upon my humans by the people showing normal dogs (i.e. not
bloodhounds and not me)—it was all “Control your dog!”And many years later my humans are still
trying to do just that. Equally
unsuccessfully of course, but not for want of trying. This was all especially
humiliating for Elizabeth who specializes in working with dominant breed
shelter dogs. But the thing is, those
dogs care, I don’t.Those of you who
have Hounds know what I am talking about—we are just not hierarchical canines.
It makes no difference to me whether you are an alpha or an omega, I am just
going to do what I want to do regardless.

One of my favorite stories involves the time I disrupted an
entire photo shoot and a dominance-oriented guy who trained military dogs
stepped in to wrangle me. He clearly
thought the issue was Elizabeth’s incompetence.My motto, “Wrangle not lest ye be wrangled” was much in evidence and at
the end of it we had one sweaty dominance trainer and one Hound who was still
doing just as he pleased. The guy handed
Elizabeth my leash and shook his head and said, “I just don’t understand. He doesn’t respond to intimidation or force
and he doesn’t work for food. How do you get him to do what you want?” The
answer is that you don’t. In my
experience, things go a lot more smoothly if you let me have my way. NB: I had
a very short career as a canine model.

Well good luck to everyone at Westminster—better you than
me. My humans will be ringside cheering on the Hounds and admiring the
deportment of the regular dogs.

In honor
of its being Valentine’s Day, another excerpt from The Wimsey Institute of
Houndish Art.The gorgeous lady Hound in
question is Phoebe who co-owns breeder, owner handler Karen Dewey with Garth
who will be at Westminster.

Also this week, more
picture from my archive—although a few new ones too—owing to my humans’
laziness.

The Pre-Raphaelites
were a group of painters who admired the simplicity of the art of the early
15th century that existed before the era of the Renaissance painter Raphael,
whom they considered elaborate and theatrical. Romeo and Juliet (Ford
Madox Brown, 1870, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington). Well, I mean Romeo
and Juliet are so old hat and their romance didn’t turn out very well, so I
think we can substantially enhance the appeal of this painting by adding a more
robust set of lovers—Hounds being rather unlikely to drink poison or stab themselves
with daggers, etc. (permitting our humans a small spot on the couch is about as
self-sacrificing as we get). See how the beautiful lady Hound (her name is
Phoebe, by the way) gazes out at us with such Houndly sagacity as the ardent
Wimsey intently drinks in every expression in her magnificent, droopy eyes. We
can see that at any moment he will caress her ponderous flew with his lengthy,
moist tongue. Was there ever such devotion! (“Romeo and Juliet and Wimsey
and Phoebe”).

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Hello Everyone, it’s me, Wimsey, once again coming to you
from Manhattan’s Upper West Side where apparently The Super Bowl is considered
a national holiday.My human Maria and
her friend Elizabeth are complaining that Fairway is looking a lot like
Thanksgiving, with lines out the door.This is especially annoying to them because it is the second time this
week that they have been trapped in supermarket hell (if Dante had only known
about Fairway…) because we had a faux blizzard to prepare for.Although the first (and I would argue, the
only) priority in blizzard preparations is making sure that I would have enough
food, both of them ended up wasting inordinate amounts of time preparing for a
few inches of delightful powder.Never
underestimate the power of The Weather Channel to create a media frenzy---even
the folks at CNN are taking lessons.And
yes, we know that it is far better to be overprepared than underprepared (at
least that is what my humans tell themselves after each climatorial wreaking of
non-havoc makes them feel silly) but coping with the disruption that I bring to
their lives is disruption enough.

And speaking of disruption, January has been nothing but,
hence my prolonged absence. First, of course, Elizabeth deserted me for a
conference in San Francisco where she got to swan around in clothes that did
not have my drool on them and did not smell like me and pretend that she always
looks like this. This meant that Maria had to come home from work in the middle
of the day to walk me since I usually spend the day over at Elizabeth’s
preventing her from working at her computer.This in turn meant that it was my job to try to go to “Elizabeth’s”
apartment(really it’s mine based on the
sheer volume of my stuff with which it is filled) on every walk to check and
see if she was there.And it was Maria’s
job to prevent this and to try to make me empty my bladder and bowels
instead.The week did not go well. And
because I am a very astute Hound I know that if I want to annoy Maria, I ignore
her. Just like I know that if I want to annoy Elizabeth I don’t ignore her.
Well both my indoor and outdoor behavior were the subject of furious texts and
emails flying between New York and San Francisco and everyone wanted Elizabeth
home except Elizabeth. She was apparently enjoying the clothing thing.

Well Elizabeth no sooner got home than I presented my humans
with another of my medical emergencies—this time a growth inside my mouth that
had to be surgically excised. So off we all trundled to see my long-suffering
surgeon at Blue Pearl who was commended by Elizabeth for not killing me with
anesthesia the last time and was encouraged to do likewise again.Of course all the while this was going on the
papers were multiplying my humans’ work desks like rabbits, but nothing could
be done since I always takes priority.

It was pretty exciting to have surgery on a new body part
and oral surgery entails some significant benefits.First and foremost, the Heinous Gentle Leader
was banished. My winter coat likewise could not be used since getting it on and
off might disrupt the healing. Baths have been banned. And perhaps best of all,
I was not permitted to eat hard kibble. The ladies tried soaking the kibble in
homemade chicken broth from my boiled chicken breast, but I found its texture
displeasing so Maria high tailed it off to a pet shop and bought me every
flavor of Merrick canned dog food available. Apparently my majestic proportions
require the delivery of 7 cans of the stuff into the Wimsey gullet, a process
that I am enjoying very much.My humans
not so much as there has been a marked decrease in their indoor air quality and
an increase in the poop bags.

Nevertheless, I am planning a huge hunger strike should I
ever be returned to naked kibble. And I nearly omitted to mention that since I
can’t have crunchy cookies on my walks either I have to be fed turkey at
regular intervals instead.

Also, because I was not permitted to scratch my face, I had
to be delivered to Elizabeth’s first thing in the morning so I could be
observed at all times. I like being observed. I like it when my humans watch me
sleep. I like it when they watch me eat. I like it when they watch me chew my
bully sticks (of which I have been cruelly deprived during my
convalescence—even my beloved nubs have been banished!).I pretty much took over January.Even more than I usually do which, even for
me, was an accomplishment. And sensing that my regular vet might feel
neglected, yesterday I started carrying on about my right ear to such an extent
that we all had to spend Friday evening getting my ears flushed out and
cultured. Again. A new supply of Positex has been laid in and my humans are
under the sad illusion (again) that they will be able to get the stuff into my
ear twice a day.

I should also mention that my activities have proven a major
boon to the local liquor store---Elizabeth in particular is on the verge of a
breakdown over the piled up work (clients being notoriously unsympathetic on
the subject of days spent observing the dog instead of working on their
projects). But it is a fitting punishment for her leaving, especially for a
conference that has nothing to do with me.I think this should be remedied:

Featured Talks at
Wimsey’s Bloodhound Conference

Plenary Session: The Bloodhound. Why?

Why Can’t I Train My Bloodhound But He Can Train Me?

Cutting a Bloodhound’s Nails: An Owner’s Guide to
Tranquilizer Darts and Other Anesthetics

Rock Gardens, Cacti and Sand: Solutions to the Landscaping
Bloodhound

My Bloodhound Thinks I’m an Idiot. Is He Right?

Life Lessons Learned From My Bloodhound: How To Get Your Way
All the Time Without Anyone Noticing

The Best Food for a Bloodhound: Yours

Ten Tenths of the Law: The Thieving Bloodhound-- Criminal
Genius or Misunderstood Miscreant?

The Quiet, Well-Behaved Bloodhound and Other Canine Myths
That Make Us Feel Inadequate

Bloodhound Facial Wrinkles: An Evolutionary Adaptation for
Gathering Scent or for Getting Off Scot Free

Stubborn, Entitled and Obnoxious or Effective,
Self-Actualizing and Goal Oriented?

Round Table Discussion: Is it Possible to Have a Bloodhound
and Have A Life?

Cocktail Reception to follow hosted by Tanqueray.

Well you get the idea.Anyway, I apologize for having to use photos from my copious
archive—apparently my humans can’t be bothered to take their hands out of their
gloves when the temperature falls below 35. Wimps!

But there is this picture from a few weeks ago when the
Metropolitan Museum of Art was having an expo on Madame Cezanne. In honor of
that, here is my Madame Cezanne entry from The Wimsey Institute of Houndish Art
(available on Amazon!

Both Picasso and Matisse described
Cezanne as “the father of us all” for creating the foundation of modern art.
However in this early painting, Madame Cezanne in a Red Chair, (Paul
Cezanne 1877, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston) there is just the hint
of Cezanne’s future preoccupation with viewing the world through different
planes. But we can see here the remarkable juxtaposition of patterns that must
have delighted Matisse (whose specialty patterns were), as well as wonderful,
small brush strokes that build to a geometrical whole. We can sense the
solidity and almost monumental quality of Madame Cezanne which is enhanced by
her off center positioning in the chair; and we can almost feel her weight as
she leans on its arm. Cezanne painted more than thirty pictures of her and she
was required to sit immobile for hours. We think that this must have been
extremely boring for her, not to mention that in this painting her broad, empty
lap and the large arm chair just beg to be filled with something both beautiful
and entertaining. But what could that be? Yes! A Magnificent Hound, draped
comfortably and diminutively in her lap so as not to overpower her fine figure!
I am sure her face looks much happier now. And the Hound has lifted his head in
an interrogative way as if to express Madame Cezanne’s sentiments of “aren’t
you done yet?” (“Madame Cezanne and Wimsey in a Red Armchair”).

Friday, January 2, 2015

Hello and Happy New Year Everyone! It’s me Wimsey, finally
having a few minutes to post about all my doings here on Manhattan’s Upper West
Side where the holidays have disrupted my schedule to an amazing degree. Where
to begin?

There are so many ways that I have been inconvenienced and
so little time to enumerate them all. First, owing to the fact that the
holidays fell on a Thursday, my human Maria’s employer decided to bow to the
inevitable and close the office both Fridays (I guess he realized it would be
tough to supervise from St. Barth’s). The 4-day weekends, plus some vacation
days added up to a 12-day stretch where Maria was around to take care of me
full time. Now some of you might think that this would please me. It did
not.Her selfish, extended holiday meant
that there was no need for her friend Elizabeth to pick me up for our endless
afternoons spent walking around so I can visit pet shops, food trucks and the
park benches where people try to eat (all while I take care of minimal amounts
of business). And what’s worse, it meant that I haven’t been hanging out with
Elizabeth in my secondary apartment getting fed fancy lunches and bothering her
when she tries to work.And I am sure
alien dogs have been savaging my toy pile while I have been gone. I will be
taking an extensive sniffventory when I am finally able to return.

I have become a one human Hound. I know you all feel my
pain, but it gets worse. Elizabeth’s monster project is just going to go on and
on and even when I am around she spends her days staring at her computer
instead of scratching me. And my joy at the fact that she is not going to leave
me to travel on her birthday the third week in January this year was
overshadowed by the fact that she leaves a week from Sunday for a week’s
conference in San Francisco and apparently this conference is not about
me.Maria is going to have to rush home
from work that week to give me a measly hour walk in the afternoons. But I had
my revenge. Right after Elizabeth booked her ticket she had a dream that I was
sitting in the seat next to her eating a tray of airline food.I will not allow her to escape me, even when
she sleeps.

But this talk of “monster” projects put me in mind of
something that happened before Christmas. Maria had come over to Elizabeth’s
after work so we could all go out for my early evening walk but Elizabeth was
still sitting at her computer working.

Maria: Wimsey’s
picked up a toy from his toy pile.

Elizabeth: Which
one?

Maria: Monster
(yes, I have a toy called “Monster.” He’s named after me)

Elizabeth: Uh oh.
That’s bad.

Maria: Why?

Elizabeth: You’ll
see. Or rather you’ll hear.

Maria: (a few
minutes later) Oh.

I take Teddy Roosevelt’s advice to heart--I walk softly and
carry a loud toy.

Monster is my loudest toy and when I am really cheesed off I
take him up on the futon and squeak him (although “squeak” doesn’t adequately
describe the noise he makes) until a human does or gives me whatever it was
that prompted me to consort with Monster in the first place.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year’s.
Maria cooked me a special Christmas Eve lunch of sausage, egg and cheese which
I was too busy napping to eat until Elizabeth came over to join us for a walk
which meant that she had to sit around and scratch me for an hour whilst I
digested.This caused me to get some
dirty looks from my humans who are convinced that I did it on purpose because I
know that I can’t be walked after eating because it can cause bloat.

So then I got up on the couch between them because nothing
facilitates social conversation so much as looking at a giant, Hound body
instead of the person with whom you are speaking. This led Maria to slightly
adjust her position so she could see Elizabeth, which caused me to slightly
adjust my position so she could not see Elizabeth.Which led her to adjust her position which
led me to adjust my position, etc. which led Elizabeth to conclude that maybe I
am not as dumb as she thinks I am.It
was kind of the couch variant of me staring into the rear view mirror during
our road trips so the only thing Elizabeth could see behind her was Hound head.

But I am really quite a clever Hound, even if it is only me
who thinks so. Over the past few weeks I managed to teach Elizabeth a new
trick. When she tries to lure me off the furniture with turkey in order to
leash me up I insist on having a piece of turkey before I even contemplate
getting off the furniture (to eat another piece of turkey) while she puts on my
stuff. We behaviorists call this a sampling reinforcer and before you could say
“gobble, gobble gobble”, I had trained her to thus double my turkey quotient.

I’ve always been a gifted trainer of humans—it’s why I am so
popular with them and why texts and emails with HBO words fly between Maria and
Elizabeth when I am around.It also
leads to Elizabeth turning herself into something of a human webcam. She sends
Maria a continuous stream of exciting news such as “Sir is snoring on the
futon,” and “Sir is snoring by the closets” and “Sir just had water and smeared
his snout on my pants,” and “I can’t breathe! —I must have put too much butter
on his yams again” No wonder she never gets any work done. Of course there was
that day that we had a bad nor’easter with pouring rain and I decided that I
wished to take a nice, long walk and came in after only an hour, not because we
looked like we had been taking a shower, but because when we turned north the
wind was blowing too much rain into my face. Then there are other days,
principally when my humans actually want me to walk and to take care of
business, that I decide that I might melt in a passing shower, and decline to
move. Hence it is very little wonder that I have a namesake called Monster (and
like me he is loud, smelly, trips people and is vastly inconvenient).

I can generally tell how annoying I’ve been by how much
alcohol gets consumed and how many sweaters Elizabeth buys (some people have
sex, drugs and rock n’ roll and she has woolovers.com). When I’ve been“difficult “I find her studying the Woolovers
catalog and pretending that I am not there. But she has now turned her
attention to winter hats—a box of these things is now on its way from Turtle
Fur and we are all going to try them on and select the ones we like (like any
addict, Elizabeth is always trying to get others hooked—she’s constantly
encouraging Maria to buy sweaters). Who knew I was a Gateway Hound?

But speaking of alcohol (and no, Maria’s Mother, your daughter
does not drink to excess---the four times a day she’s attached to me by a leash
tends to put a damper on the overconsumption of adult beverages)-- although
Elizabeth had to work most days, she came over for holiday drinks. This is an
activity that pleases me very much. It consists of:

2 humans

2 large Aperol Spritzes (aperol, prosecco and a splash of
club soda)

1 large canister of mixed nuts

1 I large nut-loving Hound

1 large bath towel.

As you might imagine, cocktails with the ladies is a very
elegant affair. It requires that Elizabeth shroud herself in a bath towel
because no matter where she positions the canister of nuts I position my snout
to rain drool upon her (she being the Wimsey Nut-Feeder-in-Chief).Those of you who think that she is being
fastidious, think again. Both my humans are constantly covered in my drool--
flung at them, smeared on them and dripped on them—but the Nut Drool is
special. It is constant and it is copious. It cannot be evaded, avoided or
stopped. It raineth down like manna from heaven (or Hound, which I like to
think is pretty much the same thing, although I am sure that my humans have
another destination in mind).And we
have such a lovely time, although Elizabeth gets scolded for picking out all
the almonds to feed to me,

Anyway, there is a vicious rumor going around that we all
might congregate at Elizabeth’s on Sunday and that a bath might be
involved.Also cocktails (a mandatory
part of recovering from bathing me), a pot of chicken (for me), nuts (for me) a
new stuffed toy (for me) and a box of Turtle Fur hats (not supposed to be for
me but I will do my best. Have you ever noticed how much woolen winter hats
resemble dog toys?)

Well, I think I will leave it there for now. I have to think
about what I want from San Francisco. An earthquake??? Might be a tough one.
Next week I will be back with Elizabeth—I know how much she misses me by the
ridiculous number of times she texts Maria to find out what I am doing.Maria has threatened to bring me over. Of
course this afternoon, Maria texted Elizabeth “Wimsey’s being a jerk” which
pretty much means “ Wimsey’s here.” It makes me proud to be a Hound.